Author: areeqchowdhury2

Is it time to nationalise Facebook? Recently, social media platforms have transformed from a space to socialise, share photos, and stare at memes, to a centre of digital political warfare and the murky harvesting of personal data. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to discern fact from fiction, online abuse is rampant across comment threads, and users … Continue reading A publicly-owned Facebook? Interesting idea, but fraught with difficulty

The 2017 snap general election was called to bring about a “strong and stable” government but as we know, this did not quite go to plan with the incumbent Conservative government losing their existing majority. They will now form a minority government with help from the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland. But what was … Continue reading The sn-app general election?

The government is correct to ignore some of Eric Pickles’ more retrograde recommendations such as banning selfies and non-English languages at polling stations. It is also correct to seek to address the current lack of voter verification we see throughout elections. However, the government risks isolating communities by ruling out the possibility of introducing a … Continue reading Letter: ID cards and wider issues of voter engagement

2016 witnessed a memorable moment of history for the UK’s capital city when Sadiq Khan was elected the first Muslim Mayor of London. An outsider when he announced his candidacy, Khan managed to defeat his Conservative rival Zac Goldsmith by more than 300,000 votes, gaining the largest personal mandate of any politician in British history. … Continue reading London is headed towards democratic dysfunction in 2020

As you may be aware, the Trade Union Bill is currently going through the House of Lords, and many are campaigning to modernise regulations to allow unions to hold online ballots instead of solely postal ones. Despite every major political party in the UK, the NHS, top universities, and global stock exchanges using online voting, … Continue reading Trade Union Bill: Why it’s time for online strike ballots